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You can’t want to be a writer. You have to be one.

Paul Theroux

I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I’d touched bottom.
PAUL THEROUX

Company Found Reminder
It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.
PAUL THEROUX

Magical Place Travel Worst
If you’re a misanthrope you stay at home. There are certain writers who really don’t like other people. I’m not like that, I don’t think.
PAUL THEROUX

Home People Thinking
I think that love isn’t what you think it is when you’re in your twenties or even thirties.
PAUL THEROUX

Emotion Love Thinking Twenties
Even if I were traveling with you, your trip would not be mine.
PAUL THEROUX

Mine Travel Trip
My greatest inspiration is memory.
PAUL THEROUX

Country Inspiration Memories People
I don’t think that it’s possible to have a truly rewarding experience in travel if it’s simple.
PAUL THEROUX

Experiences Reward Simple Thinking
Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.
PAUL THEROUX

Feeling Mind Travel
Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.
PAUL THEROUX

Boston Childhood Maine
…a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.
PAUL THEROUX

Artist Country might People Society
Writing … is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.
PAUL THEROUX

Competitive Persons Writing
I don’t look down on tourism. I live in Hawaii where we have 7 million visitors a year. If they weren’t there, there would be no economy. So I understand why a tourist economy is necessary.
PAUL THEROUX

Hawaii Look Years
It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is over certain of his plot.
PAUL THEROUX

Boredom Hero Novelists
Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions.
PAUL THEROUX

Bad Decision Men
Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the trip. And so the travel writer is doing the traveling for you.
PAUL THEROUX

Book Order People
One of the cardinal principles of Buddhism, the principle of neglect.
PAUL THEROUX

Buddhism Neglect Principles

You can’t want to be a writer. You have to be one.

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You can’t want to be a writer. You have to be one.

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